


For Just a Moment

by TheAutumnLeaves



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Abuse, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Neglect, Past Abuse, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 21:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15228105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutumnLeaves/pseuds/TheAutumnLeaves
Summary: When allowed some rest, Luke manages to escape his cell on the Executor. However, after how long he has been a prisoner, he's sure he can't get away, and instead goes to his father's quarters to hide as long as he can.





	For Just a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings : Abuse, Neglect, Unreality  
> Headcanons : Trans Luke

Luke ducked against the wall and held his breath as a group of Stormtroopers marched down the hall, their footsteps even and harsh, seeming to stomp at his very mind. When they were gone, he forced himself to look up from the floor, where his eyes had fallen in desperate subservience, took a deep breath, and ran down the passage. His bare feet stuck somewhat to the cold metal floor, the cool, recycled air was harsh on his lungs. He hadn’t run much, lately.  
He stumbled to the door of Vader’s quarters, his chest heaving with exertion. It was pathetic, he thought, pressing his hand to his chest as if it could somehow help. That he had been captured and rejected and left to wilt away to nothing, and now couldn’t even imagine true escape, was only running in hope of brief respite. It was – he remembered standing on the shifting sands of Tatooine, hot and punishing, but vast, almost freeing, and hearing his uncle tell him that he wouldn’t be killed, as long as he held value.  
His value was seeping away. In his blood, and cries, and sleepless nights, he was growing weaker, forcing himself to forget the intel he was interrogated for, so that when he cried for mercy, swore he didn’t know – it was true.  
His only value, now, was refusing to give in. A task a corpse could more easily perform. He held no special value, anymore.  
He heard steps again, and hurriedly pressed on into Vader’s quarters, coming still as a statue in the darkness as the door closed, and he heard the muffled footsteps pass without question.  
Perhaps it was why he’d come here.  
He turned to the room at large. In space, there was little to light it. They were not particularly near any stars, so the viewport offered little more than thousands of pinpricks of useless light that illuminated nothing. Nonetheless, Luke knew the space. He knew it from his rare visits, to divulge a particularly important piece of information directly to Vader, knowing that his voice had been recorded, breaking on the words anyway, that the secret was already given up. He knew it from when he would throw himself away from torture, tearing his mind and soul from his howling body, and cling to Vader like some kind of pathetic… clinging…  
He didn’t have words.  
For a moment, he remembered seeing kids wrapping themselves around a parent’s leg, laughing as the adult tried to shake them off, or else go around with their added burden.  
It wasn’t his situation, he reminded himself.  
He was not a small child. He was a grown man, who had made his own choices, which had separated him, however cruelly, from his father. He was a soldier in his own right, walking the path he’d been set on, sure, but choosing to continue. Or. He had been a soldier. He had been a rebel, and a Jedi, and held his own value –   
Now he was only a liability.  
And so, in fear and loneliness, he had returned to one place he wanted to feel valuable, was still able to half-feel that he should be.  
“Father?” he whispered to the empty room.  
There was no answer.  
He had not wanted an answer, really, only to feel that he had tried to get one. The word didn’t echo in the space, small and weak as his voice was, and a feeling of great helplessness sank over him. He was like a child, shouting into a gorge to hear his voice return to him, except the room absorbed his cry, silencing it, and making him still smaller, surrounded by its huge dark walls. Insignificant.  
It had no room to return his call for help, no space to make him heard. It, like his father, existed in a scope of magnitude so much larger than he could anymore, with a kind of dignity that precluded his presence.  
“Father?” he asked again, and his eyes fell closed as the Force whispered to him the path that his father walked, the one he had watched, but never truly absorbed, relieved only to be free of the prison for a little while –   
Silent in the dark, Luke took a small, unsteady step.  
How many times had he watched his father stride this path, with its tight, military efficiency, a direct line from one door through to another, unimpeded by the large desk and records banks on either side. The room was grand, imposing, but ultimately, it was perfectly clear to anyone that it wasn’t the space Vader truly kept for himself.  
Luke had never seen past that second door, in person.  
When he disassociated, and fled to his father’s shadow to hide, he stayed with his father, and watched that second door open, followed him through it to the hyperbaric chamber where Vader could be unmasked, and receive medical treatment. He’d seen his father receive transfusions of Luke’s own blood, or read reports for hours on end, or even, occasionally, rest.  
As far as Vader knew, Luke had never seen beyond the desk where he was forced to admit his failings. Where his guards pushed him to his knees, and he barely dared to peek up at Vader as he whispered again whatever he’d been unable to repress.  
He stumbled, his uneven footing throwing him into the sharp corner of the desk, and he bit back a harsh breath. There was no reason to, he knew. There was no one to see him cry, or care if he did. But it felt cowardly to lose to a desk after all these months.  
He wasn’t meant to be here.  
This was not the home his heart was crying out for, the comforting, familiar surroundings he was trying to believe it could be. All the time in the galaxy couldn’t make watching a warlord go about his cruel, violent business feel like bonding. No amount of silent following could make this place a home.  
It was a military base, plain and simple.  
But it’s better than prison, right? He thought, pressing his hand to his hip now, and stumbling onwards. It’s better than the guards having constant access to me, to do whatever they want. I’m safe here, at least.  
He reached the second door, after what felt like a lifetime. And he realized that he couldn’t gesture it open as easily as his father could, his gaze automatically drawn back to where he couldn’t help thinking he belonged, on the floor before his father’s desk.  
This was the world his father had given him. This was where he had been granted audience, those few times they wanted to really rub in his face exactly how badly he had messed up.  
The room beyond was something he’d stolen, a place he had never been supposed to go.  
This was where his father had chosen to engage him. In an office, before guards, exploiting his weakness, mocking him with his impassivity.  
As a prisoner.  
Beyond, where his father was a man, and not just a military commander, Luke was not welcome, and something twisted in his gut at that. Perhaps he had no right to go farther. Perhaps he was just as well to curl up here, and take whatever time he could before he was found, and dragged back to his cell. He clenched his fists. Maybe he shouldn’t have even come this far.  
Maybe this time, those few hours he was granted for rest would have been put to better use trying to stop being a liability.  
The Alliance wasn’t coming back for him. They couldn’t, and he’d sort of always known that, but had hoped, stupidly, that maybe Leia would pull some heroics for him. He was useless to the Empire, except for intel, which he desperately needed to hide. He was even losing his value as a slave. And now, standing before his father’s door, and realizing that he’d never been invited inside, he realized it was stupid to hope he held any as a son.  
He was a liability to the Alliance, and a mistake his father was well on his way to rectifying. He was an error and an impediment and nothing but a threat to those he loved, and if he deserved to step past that door then anyone damn well did –   
He raised his hand, and the door opened with a soft whoosh of air that belied its importance to him.  
It opened like any other door in the ship, or in the galaxy, any one that he had passed through his whole life.  
It was a door. It held no greater meaning, not really. It wasn’t truly a barrier put up specifically to keep him out, even if it felt like it. It was a door, and it hadn’t been any harder to open for him than it had been for his father, in the end.  
It had just been getting the nerve, believing that he deserved to even see beyond it.  
And of course, he did, he thought harshly, stepping through, and looking up at the huge hyperbaric chamber, a dark blight on another dark room, lit only by pinpricks of light, though these were of systems rather than stars.  
Just because he was Vader’s mistake didn’t mean he deserved to want his father any less.  
Just because his father would never offer his love didn’t mean Luke was stupid for wanting it. No. Expecting it would have made him stupid.  
Luke didn’t expect anything, anymore. At least, he didn’t expect anything beyond continued cruelty, harsh punishment for a life he hadn’t asked for, in a harsh galaxy, led by people crueler than he could imagine having the desire to be.  
It was strange, then, that one of them was his father.  
He padded further into the room, feeling goosebumps start to rise on his remaining forearm, the cold of the processed air and metal floor tiles starting to prickle at his stump.  
He wasn’t… he wasn’t stupid to want his father.  
It was only useless to hope that he might ever have him.  
Silent in the dark, he pressed his forehead to the closed clamshell, feeling its cold seep into him as well. Under his palm, the metal was harsh and jagged, utilitarian in construction even in Vader’s most private home.  
Luke’s existence was predicated on useless hope.  
His continued choice to put one foot ahead of the other, to look at his aunt and uncle’s smoking corpses and choose to avenge them, to come back to the Empire to strike another blow, to hide the secrets of an insurgent group that would almost certainly lose.  
He gave it all the benefit of the doubt, all his sincere hope that it could someday, somehow, work out.  
He’d given the Alliance everything he’d had in him. He’d given them his time, his skills, his knowledge, and since the moment he’d been captured, he’d been slowly, painfully, giving them his life. He had nothing left to give. Not to them. Not to a military organization, not even to his friends, to Leia, thousands of lightyears away.  
No. All he had left now was his identity. Was the fact that he was Vader’s son. Was the fact that his broken body, his shaking hand and battered arms were the result of an action of Vader’s.  
He couldn’t give that importance to the Alliance.  
He wasn’t sure he could even give it to Vader.  
But he stood in the dark in Vader’s empty quarters and promised himself it was still good for something.  
It was still valuable to him, at least.  
He sighed. He had to admit that to himself. It wasn’t easy, to look at himself, as he had caught glimpses on his escape from the prison, with his broken nose and blackened eyes and gaunt cheeks and admit to himself that his relation to the man who had ordered it mattered to him.  
To him, no matter what Vader did or said, no matter what lengths he went to, to show Luke that he would never be home here, it was still the place he wanted to retreat to.  
It was where he’d seen his father most at peace, sitting in silence and contemplation, not giving orders, or demanding information from him, but just… just existing. Just being a man, in his own right, human and resting and finally almost relatable. Someone Luke could almost dare to imagine being loved by.  
“I’m home,” he whispered, his lips twinging upwards with the sad joke, before a little sob tore itself loose from his throat. “I’m back, Father, even if you don’t want me. It’s not going to be much longer before you don’t have to… to deal with me, anymore.”  
The concept of me was strange to him. The concept of himself, of a farm boy turned rebel turned Jedi turned prisoner turned soon-to-be corpse. Of a man who had made his own choices, from when he’d told Aunt Beru that he didn’t want to be called ‘Leia’ anymore, that he was a boy, and wanted to be treated like one, until the day he had shouted to his friend, Leia, a woman who held the name so much better than he ever could have, to run, and leave him to the Imperials. Of the son of a Sith. The idea that his conception had occurred in a fully different galaxy, one unlike any he had ever lived in, one where Darth Vader had been a man named Anakin Skywalker, and a hero. One where he had once, presumably, wanted to be a father, and taken the necessary steps.  
He remembered even his own better times, long after his father had thrown him aside and never looked back, when he had played in Tatooine’s twin suns, or made a nuisance of himself getting in his aunt and uncle’s way. He remembered relaxing, tinkering, exploring the galaxy and appreciating its wonders, all such foreign concepts now that his life had been compacted to his one small cell.  
Luke felt like a man outside of time.  
The galaxy where he had been wanted was far beyond his grasp, but the galaxy where he was what he had made of himself was distant, too. Outside of this room, there may as well have been nothing. He may as well have been nothing.  
It was just in this room, alone, that he existed. As a boy now. A child, who only wanted his father’s comfort, and perhaps… Perhaps he could just wait here. Give up fully on trying to escape, on ending it, to end his threat to the Alliance. He would have another chance. Perhaps it wasn’t wrong to just be here, near where his father was ‘home’, and just wait for the troopers to find him again.  
Perhaps it wouldn’t even be wrong to hope his father would find him first.  
He considered trying to force the chamber open, ran his fingers along the jagged seam where its halves met, before shaking his head to himself. No. He deserved to want his father, and he deserved to be able to enjoy the break he had stolen from the Empire, but he didn’t deserve, or perhaps was just afraid, to open the chamber and go to his father’s huge, solitary chair.  
Quietly, unsteadily, he lowered himself to the floor, instinctively folding what remained of his right arm over his chest, before beginning an unsteady crawl into a safe nook between supports of his father’s medical chamber.  
He could hide under there.  
Like a child hiding under a parent’s desk, or building a fort out of cushions, he could shelter himself in the tangles of tubing and wires and imagine that he was safe.  
Though Luke was intimately aware that he was not safe. That he was not a child playing, but a broken soldier still searching for a way to fight back, somewhere to hide and lick his wounds. That his hiding spot was not a couch, but the very systems that kept one of his worst enemies alive. That he still didn’t want that enemy to die, that he wanted something different, something unprecedented. That in return, his enemy did not want him dead, but worse. Wanted him broken, his mind torn through for answers Luke desperately didn’t want to give, until there wasn’t enough left to patch together a person.  
He knew also, in a strange juxtaposition with that disinterest, that unlike a playing child, there would be people seeking him out. That his bright prison jumpsuit and unsteady breaths would betray him, and he would be pulled loose and beaten again for daring to escape.  
Still, he folded himself into the shadows, hoping that he would be hidden for just a few precious moments longer, that he could lie here near where his father slept, and dream of being invited home.  
Slowly, he shifted his position, trying to settle comfortably into the wires, as if this was a place ever meant to be accessed by a human.  
He was home, he reminded himself, curling up, folding his stump protectively to his chest. No matter how much pain he was in, no matter how much this was not a good or safe home. He was away from his guards, away from his cell, away from torture and impersonal cruelty. He was where he always escaped to, though more than he ever had been before. The dark, uncomfortable shadow was safe, at least.  
He finally managed to work his way down mostly to the cold, hard ground, fewer cables pressing into his bruised sides, and exhaled softly.  
He didn’t have long, wanted to make every moment of comparative safety last. There had not yet been a panic as they realized he was gone, and Luke lay still, waiting for it in resignation. Or, perhaps there would be no scuffle. No alarms raised as they realized a broken, spent prisoner had finally managed to free himself from their cruelty, one way or another. Perhaps he would be allowed to go, and lie here until his father returned, to find him weak and helpless, alone and too exhausted to continue.  
He closed his eyes, resting his head on his good arm. He could almost see it, could see from the eyes of an indistinct figure he imagined to be his father as he stepped into the room, and saw a flicker of orange jumpsuit, or perhaps a bruised foot. He imagined the stranger pulling him out, folding him to his chest protectively and caressing his head in concern. It was a beautiful dream, he thought. The idea of having his father concerned about him was so alien that the imagined father did not wear Vader’s familiar leather gloves, more a collection of mist than a figure that Luke could properly see. More akin to the being he had imagined as a child. A form of dreams and undirected affection.  
As he imagined his father cradling him closer again, starting to draw him out of his hiding spot, he forced himself to open his eyes.  
That was not the reality. It was impossible, a stupid child’s dream that would never happen –   
Letting himself sink into its reassurance would only weaken his resolve to keep the Alliance’s secrets, and no dream was worth that.  
No dream –  
He caught himself imagining his father’s hand again, now from his own perspective, strong and steady as it had been at Bespin, with nothing but potential comfort to offer now, no way his situation could get worse –   
He let out a hoarse sob finally, pressing his stump to his chest, trying to dull the ache of his heart. There was nothing his father could do to help him, no love that would be offered if his father came home now.  
He sank his hand into his hair, raking it back from his forehead as the tears came, heavier now, pouring down his face, fat and heavy, taking away water he couldn’t spare.  
He was home for now, but this was all there was. There was no love, no comfort that would be returned to him, no hope of just being held. Not even a comforting daydream was safe, his one-time retreat stolen from him by the desperate need for shields.  
No Han, no Leia, no chance of ever seeing them again, of even knowing if they were alive…  
He drew another harsh breath, his shoulders shaking, before there was a sense of movement from behind him, and he struggled to turn on his back to look. There – there couldn’t be anything back there, he tried to reassure himself. He was tucked away and hidden, there was only one vector of approach!  
And sure enough, there was only solid, cold metal behind him. He tried to relax, to take a deep breath, but it wouldn’t come, only another shaky whimper.  
He wanted to feel safe, he only wanted a few minutes - !  
Again, something moved. Another rattle, and suddenly, jagged shadows were cast across the floor as light spilled from above him. The clamshell was opening, a great, terrible exhalation as the room filled with its orange light.  
Luke choked; tried to silence his cries, but he couldn’t do it.  
His father was close, as close as he’d dreamed, as close as he’d ever been to him! He wanted to go to him, to just get over with whatever he’d have in store. Maybe if he surrendered again, they wouldn’t be so harsh on him for escaping…  
In the empty space, his broken cries were all too audible. There was no escape now. No home to return to, no chance of death to take him away at last –  
He felt the Force, silent and smooth, almost soft, swirling around the room as his father searched for the source of his sobs.  
“You must know,” he croaked, his voice barely carrying. Surely his father knew there was only one prisoner stupid enough to seek out comfort here. Surely he knew that his broken son, radiating pain, was nearby. Surely he knew that said son did not expect kindness now, but hoped for it with a pathetic futility.  
For another long moment, he felt his father’s presence prodding his, the emotional equivalent to feeling him for broken bones.  
Then, another exhale. One so small that he could not have heard it, but must have felt it through the intensity of his father’s closeness.  
“I suspected.”  
Luke felt a lump grow in his throat, but refused to release it, refused to let himself audibly cry, now that he was certain of his father’s presence. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, choked. “What happens now?”  
Had his father already summoned the troopers? The guards who would take him back to his cell? Luke’s heart ached at the thought of them in here, entering the space he half-believed he shared privately with his father. If he had to see them here, he had to further accept that this room was not off limits, only out of his reach. If they came in, and dragged him from under the hyperbaric chamber, if he had to see them invade this pathetic little safe corner too –   
His father didn’t answer, and Luke slumped, not caring as the cables pressed into his side, and the ground seemed harder than it had been before. The guards had been called, they’d arrive here soon to take him away again.  
He tried to roll forwards, to stumble to his feet and stagger to the doorway, so the troopers could take him back easily, could not ruin the scant comfort of this place.  
He was nothing, and his father saw that. He could offer himself back to the Empire to take away and cease to be a blight on his father’s life.  
He grasped the edge of the clamshell and pulled himself up. His legs shook, and he felt the pain down to his ankles, complaining about his repeated attempt at movement.  
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and dared to look up at his father, to see that half-familiar face. The one he saw in dreams, and in the Force, but had never before seen with his own eyes, old and pale and scarred, and human. So human. So much easier to want to return to than Vader’s mask, even though he knew it was the same man. “I just… I just wanted a break.”  
Vader didn’t answer immediately, and Luke’s gaze fell back to his feet, certain he was infringing just by looking at Vader.  
“I know that’s no excuse.”  
Shakily, he released the hyperbaric chamber, and stumbled towards the door. Vader wouldn’t respond. Vader never wasted words on him. So, he’d just go and sit by the door, and the chamber would – his stomach turned over – the chamber would close again. He’d be left alone. Again. Rejected and shut out and abandoned. Again. He would be alone, so close to his father.  
It would be alright.  
Or, not alright.  
But normal.  
Not normal for any other family, he hoped. Not normal for anyone else in the galaxy to be interrogated by their father, left to suffer in a dark, cold cell any time they were not being abused.  
But normal for them.  
He had nearly reached the door when he felt an invisible hand wrap around his torso.  
As it lifted him off his feet, he exhaled, slumping into its grasp, tears pouring down his cheeks. He couldn’t even go? He couldn’t even just go back to his cell, or suffer the torture of strangers, his father had to beat him now? When he had come only for a few moments’ peace?  
Slowly, he was lowered to the floor inside the chamber, and he crumpled, trying to make himself small, as if he could vanish into the floor.  
There was the sound of machinery, and Luke winced, forcing himself to raise his eyes, and watch as the top half of the clamshell began to descend.  
So the troopers weren’t even coming.  
His father was trapping him, ensnaring him in the one place he’d wanted so badly to just be invited.  
As the chamber closed completely, there was a hiss and strange clunking, and Luke knew it had sealed.  
There would be no escape. Whatever his father had in store, there would be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide in this barren sphere. He wanted to be back underneath, hidden in the cables. He wanted to be back in his cell, or even on a torture rack.  
At least then he knew where the pain would come from.  
Another loud hiss, and Luke winced, trembling as a cool breeze swept the room, and the air started to taste strange and sweet. There was too much pressure, it couldn’t just have been his imagination, he must have truly been being crushed by the air. But this was nothing. This was nothing on what would happen when his father began torture.  
He had seen this before. When he watched his father relax, he had seen Vader’s exhalation as the chamber pressurized, the way it seemed to take such a weight from him.  
And in spite of himself, in spite of knowing how stupid it was! He turned to look. To see that comfort in person.  
For a perfect moment, he just saw his father. Just a man. Just breathing, needing a moment after his protective seal had been broken. His eyes closed, he inhaled, exhaled, breaths slowly deepening again, until he looked up to meet Luke’s eyes, and the boy ducked his head again in shame.  
“I know I shouldn’t have run,” he said. He knew his father likely wouldn’t waste words on him, unless new questions had occurred to him to ask. He knew that, as such, his own words were wasted; he knew they wouldn’t confer him any mercy.  
Again, the Force lifted him, and he allowed himself to be manipulated however his father wished. Being torn in two didn’t seem too bad a way to go, he thought helplessly, watching the floor pass below him. They had stretched his limbs to the greatest extent they could, and while painful…  
But he was lowered to the floor again, unhurt. He realized that he was at his father’s knees suddenly, that he was kneeling as he had once defied to do. He wondered if his father had done this specifically to mock him, to remind him of his weakness, his helplessness.  
There was a glint of metal, and he flinched, covering his face with his remaining arm as best he could, toppling over backwards in his hurry to shield himself.  
For a moment, he sat on the floor, arm raised, trembling and waiting for pain that never came.  
Terrified, he lowered his arm, just a couple inches. Just enough to peek over.  
The glint of metal had been just a hand, not some torture implement. Just his father’s hand, reaching for him. It didn’t seem malicious, and Vader was watching him in silence, with an expression that Luke might have thought was concern, if he didn’t know better.  
Still, his hand was raised to Luke, and in spite of himself, Luke longed to go to him, to live the daydream he had forbidden himself.  
Luke rolled forwards again, catching himself unsteadily, feeling off kilter without his hand all over again. He moved forwards and realized acutely that Vader’s hand was precisely at the height of his head.  
Don’t be stupid, he scolded himself, stopping painfully near that needed comfort. He’s not… he couldn’t bring himself to even think the words.  
He leaned into Vader’s hand.  
It couldn’t get worse, Vader couldn’t get crueler.   
But it could.  
Vader began to stroke Luke’s hair with one finger, supporting his child in the palm of his hand.  
Luke choked on a sob, felt the tears begin to pour. It could get so much worse.  
He’d never had this before, never had the support of his beloved father, not when he was a child, not since he’d started following in his footsteps. It had been something he’d longed for, something he’d worked hard to deserve, and now, now that he was useless, was worthless, his father pretended to give it to him.  
Yes, Vader could get crueler. Vader could show him everything he could have had.  
“I’m sorry, Father,” Luke whispered, pressing into his father’s palm, into that safety and comfort. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be, his father was mocking him once again, but for now, he felt safe. Just enough of himself believed that this was real that he could close his eyes, and dream. “I’m sorry…”  
Again, the Force stirred around him, but Luke didn’t bother to tense. Whatever was coming would come, in its own sweet time, and anticipating it would do nothing but hurt him further.  
As he was lifted from the floor once again, Vader’s hand remained steady on his cheek, grounding him even as his toes dragged across the floor, and he dared to forget the rest of the world.  
Just for a moment, his father was touching him, cool fingers gentle and soothing. He hurt, but no amount of pain was equal to the gravity of being caressed by his father. It drew his attention, refused to be ignored for anything as trivial as injury. Perhaps that was Vader, forcing still greater desperation for his acceptance, but Luke didn’t fight it.  
Vader couldn’t exaggerate it, not really. Luke longed for him, needed him, more than Vader could possibly understand. Vader, who regularly tortured him, who left him lying in his own blood without glancing back, could never how much Luke loved him.  
Slowly, Luke was lowered back to the floor, propped against his father’s chair, close to his knees. He wouldn’t have dared to approach his father like this, but now that he was close, he did nothing more than let out another whimper, and relax.  
Vader could beat him, could break him, could smash his head open on a sharp angle of his chair, it would all be worth it for this moment of contact.  
“I’m sorry,” Luke mumbled again, daring to press his face to his father’s leg. His father was giving him affection, accepting his own touch-starved response, only as a ploy to further hurt him, but Luke gave back desperately, forcing upon him affection that he didn’t truly want. He was… Luke had trouble sorting his thoughts, but it felt wrong. His father didn’t want his love, not really, he only wanted to hurt Luke, so this must have been uncomfortable for him, and Luke had no right to cause discomfort –   
His thoughts were racing, like a rampaging bantha, and he couldn’t… couldn’t…  
His fist tightened, and he choked again just as Vader spoke, his voice soft and raspy without his vocoder.  
“Hush…”  
Again, Luke was being petted, a slow, gentle movement that half-startled him into breathing properly.  
“Hush,” Vader said again, and Luke let out a sob, heartbroken at the almost-believability of it all. “Hush, little one…”  
“I can’t!” he cried, and his voice was high in pain and distress. “I can’t tell you anything, you know that! I won’t!” The defiance felt empty, no strength to be found in it, only a broken promise.  
“Shh,” Vader said again, and Luke whimpered as his father turned his head somewhat, probably looking at his face, though Luke’s eyes were squeezed shut, so he couldn’t be sure.  
“Please just beat me,” Luke begged. He didn’t want that, didn’t want it at all, couldn’t think of anything he’d rather have than his father’s embrace, but the tension, the pain that could, must, have been coming soured it. He wanted this to be real but knew that it must not be.  
Vader removed his hand, and Luke cowered again, trying to shelter against his father’s leg.  
But instead of pain, there was the foreign sense of something soft being draped over him.  
How long had it been since he was comforted, Luke wondered, carefully unmaking his fist, and pulling the soft thing tighter around himself. How long since he had been warm?  
Again, there was the sound of machinery, and for the first time, Luke dared to reach out to his father. None of this was real, none was permanent. There was no safety, there never would be again, but perhaps his father would take his hand, and he could fold their fingers together, and imagine the touch meant something.  
As his father delicately wrapped his iron fist around his battered flesh, Luke hiccupped, the sobs finally breaking.  
Crying wouldn’t save him, it certainly never had before.  
Then, all too suddenly, Vader was standing up, breaking Luke’s comforting bubble of false affection, and Luke’s eyes opened as he frantically looked up at Vader.  
But it seemed that the deception was still not over, as Vader bent down, and offered his arms to his broken child.  
Uncertainly, but unwilling to risk displeasing him with slow responses, Luke leaned into his father’s arms, and didn’t struggle as he was lifted, even tried to get his feet under himself.  
It turned out to be useless, though, as his father moved him only a few inches before something was bumping against the backs of his knees, and he let them fold.  
Slowly, Vader laid him out, and Luke found himself trying to grasp his father’s hands. There was no use, he tried to tell himself, but nonetheless, when he managed to catch a metal digit, he clung to it, pulling the whole hand into his grasp.  
And then Vader was still. He seemed frozen above Luke, his hand slackening in Luke’s grasp as Luke’s breaths quickened, terrified that the hallucination was finally fading.  
“Force.”  
Luke had never heard anyone say the word with such reverence, and he pulled Vader’s hand to his lips, desperate to feel the tang of its metallic scent in his throat, to confirm with another sense that his father was close.  
Beyond, there were the slow sounds of the behemoth moving again, but his hand remained in Luke’s, so Luke didn’t try to look.  
“Oh, Force, child,” Vader said, and he sat down harder than Luke imagined would be comfortable, their joined hands jerking down with the motion of it. “My child…”  
“I’m sorry,” Luke croaked again, but before he could finish the second syllable, his father’s fingers were in his hair again, and he leaned back into his palm. “I know I’m not what you wanted.”  
It had been a fear in the back of his mind since the first time one of the other kids on Tatooine had taunted that his father had abandoned him and his mother, not really died. At the time, he had dismissed it easily enough, the innocence of a child, and his absolute confidence in the father his uncle so clearly disliked combining to offer him comforting certainty that Anakin had wanted him. Since Bespin, it had been harder to ignore.  
“You’re perfect,” Vader sighed, his thumb brushing over Luke’s eyelid. “You are not what went wrong, my son.”  
Luke shook his head, unable to take such gentle words. He had to be what had gone wrong, he had to be the reason he had had no family, or there was no justice in the galaxy. If this could happen to the child his father had wanted, then he had not lived the worst possible life, and he couldn’t bear to contemplate that.  
“Please,” he asked, adjusting his grip on his father’s wrist, “What are you doing? Why… why now?”  
“Little one…” Vader said again, running his thumb along Luke’s brow, feeling its furrows. For a long while, it seemed he wouldn’t answer, and Luke let the question go. He didn’t need – didn’t deserve? – answers. He didn’t know if this was real, or just a ploy, just another mockery of his most desperate desire. He –   
“I have tried to have you released,” Vader said, and his voice was softer, almost inaudible. “I have done everything in my power to have you left in my custody. My master would not have it.”  
“But you –,” Luke began, before the words were lost. He could only remember, all-too-clearly, his father’s cape slicing across his cheek as the Sith walked away from him after a particularly brutal beating. His father, leaving him alone and empty handed after he had thought they’d made a deal to get him a bit of food. His father, mocking his needs, exploiting his weaknesses, abusing him day after day.  
“All failed attempts to negotiate your release,” Vader said. He sounded disgusted, and Luke wanted to hurt at that tone, but could sense so clearly that it was self-directed. “I should have known better.”  
“I’m afraid,” Luke admitted, and he finally let his eyes open, to look up at Vader, uncharacteristically hunched, both hands wrapped around Luke’s one.  
“Luke,” Vader said, and as he met Luke’s eyes, he looked impossibly old and sad. His eyes were a watery light blue, and he looked close to tears, though Luke could not sense them. After only a second of eye contact, his gaze dropped back to Luke’s battered fingers, and he slowly touched a scab on one of his fingers. “I cannot protect you.”  
“I-,” Luke began uncertainly. He didn’t know what to say to that. That he had stopped expecting it? That maybe he never had? “It’s okay…”  
“No.” Vader froze, clasping Luke’s hand tighter, almost painfully tight. “I failed you.”  
“It’s alright,” Luke whispered, acutely aware of his injuries, of all the ways it was not all right. The fact that he was lying on a spare medicot, shaking with weakness despite his reclined position, the way his stump ached with an instinctive desire to reach for Vader’s hands as well, the hunger that he was slowly becoming aware of once again. He’d been broken under his father’s watchful eye and cruel blade. There was no apology in the galaxy to make up for that, but he wanted there to be, he wanted some justification for the fact that he had already forgiven his father.  
“I only wished to have my son returned to me,” Vader said softly, almost as if the words were not meant for Luke, before he raised his voice, and addressed him properly. “But I have lost any right to that.”  
He caressed Luke again, and his fingers shook, for all that the prosthetics should have steadied him.  
“I will take you to my personal hangar,” he told Luke, withdrawing with evident difficulty. “An agent has provided me with the location of the Rebel base, but I will not use the information, save to send you back.”  
Back. Back to the Alliance, back to Han and Leia… He could hardly remember being home, though he ached to return to his little room on Home One, to fly his x-wing again. How would they even – he couldn’t think of any examples of a rebel living this long in Imperial prison and returning. How would they greet him?  
“Are they alive?” he asked, straining to sit up, to lean towards his father. “Leia? Han? My friends?”  
“I believe so.”  
Vader seemed so achingly sad, his hand stilled against Luke’s cheek as if soaking in the touch.  
“You’ll let me go?” Luke asked uncertainly. He wanted to go home, he wanted so desperately to be free of the Executor, of Imperial control and the pain of these now-familiar hallways, but Vader seemed liable to grasp him tight again, to refuse to let him go.  
But then, with a whirr of machinery, his hands were gone, his rasping breathing returned, and he was on his feet. With a motion of his hand, Luke’s gurney turned, and Luke craned his neck to look up at Darth Vader in his full majesty again. “I have no right to keep you.”  
As the gurney began to move, Luke tensed, hating the lack of visibility, terrified of where his father might take him. Before, he had feared return to his cell, but now anywhere that was not where his father had held his hand and stroked his head was unwanted. Now separation from his father could mean anything, not just familiar pain.  
“Father,” he croaked, and he reached desperately for his father’s hands, giving in to his instinct to stretch his stump out as well. After all, Vader was using the Force to control his gurney, his hands must’ve been free. He could spare one for his child, he could offer a little more comfort –   
“Yes,” Vader rumbled, and Luke exhaled in relief as his father took his hand again, as delicate as if he were made of glass.  
“What if they don’t want me?” Luke asked, his voice small. He’d been ruined, after all. He had little left to offer. What if the Alliance looked at him, and saw him as dead weight? They wouldn’t be wrong… “What if they can’t even apply a new prosthetic?”  
“There has been no further damage to the stump,” Vader said. “And they are your friends. After all you have done for them, they would be foolish not to welcome you back.”  
“What if they don’t?” Luke asked, anxiety rising in his throat, “What would I do then?”  
He didn’t know if he wanted to be invited to return, or to be reassured further that Leia would never let him go, release him to the cruel galaxy without help. He wished for a moment that he could stay with his father, only for a few days, so that if he was rejected, he would at least not be alone.  
“Hush,” Vader said, and he slipped his hand free of Luke’s to stroke his temple. With the light pressure, some of Luke’s anxiety drained away, and he anticipated rising panic at the open modification of his feelings, but though his heart beat faster, it quickly returned to normal. It was as if his father was silencing any and all pain, and with that thought, he realized that even his aching body seemed to hurt less now.  
“What if even you don’t want me?” Luke asked, looking up into his mask and bearing his soul, his deepest fear. That perhaps no one wanted him, not the man who had sired him or the friends he had given everything to protect.  
Vader did not hesitate, the words coming so immediately that they had to be genuine. “You are all I ever desired. Your existence is a gift I could not deserve, as your mother was.”  
The gurney stopped, just inside a large door, and Vader carefully lifted Luke into a sitting position, turning him to take in the packed hangar.  
“I can give you this one gift,” Vader said, sounding rueful. “You may select whatever ship you wish.”  
Another day, Luke would have been fascinated by the sight, by the hundreds of ships of varying eras that filled the hangar. But now, he only saw them as a way home, a way back to his friends, his little found family.  
“Is there one I would have grown up with?” he asked, instead. If he could have some remnant of the family Vader had wanted, that would be comforting, even when he was back with the Alliance. It would be like having a piece of his biological family, alongside the one that had cared for him. Almost a replacement for his father’s lightsaber.  
“Your mother’s ship,” Vader answered, and he drew Luke into his arms, leaving the gurney in the doorway. As he walked, his arms around Luke seemed desperate, grasping at him even as he moved forwards, towards a gleaming shuttle that Luke realized with a twinge of guilt clearly saw frequent use.  
“It doesn’t –,” he began, before falling silent as his father began to climb the ramp. “Not if you use it…”  
“Your mother would wish it returned to you,” Vader dismissed, and he placed Luke gently in the pilot’s seat, ensuring that he was firmly propped up before moving on to the navicomputer. For a brief moment, there was only the sound of the keys as Vader entered information, and Luke leaned back in the pilot’s seat, looking out the wide windows at the full hangar.  
It was sad, almost heart-rending, to see the unused ships. Priceless relics and expensive new models, and ships that must once have been the expensive new models but looked as though they had not moved since they had been placed there. His aunt had told him that he had inherited his love for flying from his father, had told him some of the stories that his grandmother had told her, of his father’s proficiency with ships, of how he had won the Boonta Eve. It was the kind of hangar Luke would have wandered around like a wonderland, itching to fly every ship, and yet his father did not seem to enjoy it, leaving it to sink into disarray.  
“Come home with me,” he asked finally, reaching out to touch Vader’s cape.  
“Home?” Vader asked, almost derisively, turning away from the navicomputer at last to begin the preparations for takeoff. “I have no home, any longer. I do not deserve one.”  
“Please,” Luke asked, watching Vader’s cape flick away from his fingertips. “I don’t want to go back alone.”  
“And you believe the Alliance would welcome us if I were to join you?” Vader asked dryly, turning to look at him. He seemed too large for the space, the airy cockpit somehow dwarfed by the single dark form.  
“More than they welcome you as an Imp,” Luke said, smiling slightly.  
Vader knelt slowly before him, drawing the crash webbing over his chest and securing it, his hands lingering on the clasps. “I could not. I will pay for my crimes in time. I would not presume to try to change.”  
Luke opened his mouth to argue, but he felt his father’s sad smile as the Sith brushed his hair back gently.  
“There is nothing left in me, little one. Nothing to redeem, nothing to gain. I am hardly strong enough to send you home, now.”  
“Please!” Luke begged again, and for a moment, he felt a flash of something, perhaps from his father’s protective actions, or the space where he should have grown up, and he was suddenly able to fight for it again. He leaned forwards, straining against the crash webbing, catching Vader’s armored shoulder, “It’s not just an easy way out, I promise, Leia would never let it be! But you could come home, we could finally be a family!”  
Vader captured Luke’s shoulders in his huge hands, pushed him back to the chair, dismissing his flare of determination. “Easy, Luke. You are too weak to fight, now.”  
“I fought my way here!” Luke argued, refusing to be restrained. “I’ve been fighting every day since I was captured, why shouldn’t I fight for this, too?”  
“Asking a Sith to return home with you is hardly comparable to fighting for continued existence.”  
“Why won’t you come home?” Luke demanded. His hand on Vader’s shoulder was shaking with the exertion of clinging, though, and he slowly lowered it back to his lap. He tipped his head until his cheek brushed one of Vader’s hands, looking at him pleadingly. “What is there for you here? Your ships are disused, your home is an office, and you have a master all over again.”  
Finally, Vader fell still, his hands slipping from Luke’s shoulders as he hung his head.  
“You swear that there would be no easy forgiveness.”  
“I… I swear,” Luke promised.  
For another long moment, Vader was silent and still, kneeling on the floor before his son, before there he slowly reached up, folding his arms around him. As his father cupped his head closer to his own, Luke finally let out a small sigh of relief, and closed his eyes, squeezing back with all the strength he still had.  
For a moment, it was perfect.  
Luke forgot his injuries, forgot his pain and fear, forgot even the nagging worry that it was all another mockery, and just lay still.  
Then Vader broke away, tightening Luke’s crash webbing one more time before he returned to the take-off sequence, and suddenly the ship was lifting from the hangar floor.  
“Don’t you have anything –,” Luke began to ask, but Vader was already shaking his head, taking the too-small pilot’s seat, and guiding it towards the enormous doors.  
As they entered space, Luke held his breath, waiting for the radio to turn on, and their intentions to be questioned, but it never came, and Luke realized that the thought had been absurd. He was with Darth Vader. No one would be stupid enough to question his intentions. And then, it was space that took his breath away.  
It was the sight of the stars, of unfamiliar nebulas and empty void, and Luke realized he was crying, overcome with this ultimate freedom.  
As Vader pressed the ship into hyperspace, Luke sniffled, and wiped his tears shakily, before his father was before him again, tucking the soft thing – which Luke now recognized as a spare cape – tighter around him. Then, he raised his hand, and Luke watched distantly as he caught a few more blankets and began adding them to Luke’s cocoon.  
“Rest now,” Vader ordered, and Luke smiled sleepily at the command’s gentleness. The adrenaline was leaving him now, even the fear seeping away as his father cared for him. This could not have been an act, he thought, leaning into his father as the Sith stilled for a brief moment. A man as brutal and vicious as Darth Vader could not pretend to care for someone, could not tolerate Luke’s tired attention seeking. Tolerance of this caliber had to be real, it had to be…  
“Be still,” Vader reprimanded gently, and Luke managed to roll his head, which had drooped with his tiredness, and smile up at his father.  
He could… he could be still, that would be easy…  
Before the thoughts could go any farther, he was asleep.


End file.
